So like, at one point I wanted to write my alternative lore for all these dumb ass new lore-less characters which would portray them as terrible people to ‘kind of reflect the quality of the game or something’ as some sort of series and I started on this Anka piece and like.

I kind of stopped caring?
I had so little to work with that I wasn’t even sure if this would work. Plus, nobody in my discord group commented on it so it isn’t reaching my standards. I just want Anka being a terrible human being to be everyone’s headcanon.

“You know they’re calling you ‘The steel phantom’ now?”

Anka laughed, drinking some sort of translucent liquid out of an expensive looking goblet, laced in jewels.

“Well, it’s better than ‘The shadowblade’. I could never get behind that name. I don’t use shadows in the first place.”

Laice grinned and raised her basic looking glass towards the assassin. She responded by bringing her goblet towards it and causing a satisfying clink to momentarily echo throughout the basement.

“Well, we do operate a shady business. I’d hope their information was inaccurate. It took me ages to spread the rumours about the mystery assassin being an invisible ninja, you know.”

“Well, it does reward us handsomely.”

Anka drew a knife out of a hidden compartment around the back of her leg, and threw it out, and it flew directly into an oven build into a wall, and landed safely into a newly cooked loaf of bread. An instant later, the dagger blinked back into her hand, alongside the newly skewered loaf.

“Ahhhhhh, damnit Anka. You know where those blades have been. It doesn’t matter how much lemon juice I use, that’s always going to be unsanitary.”
Laice preemptively ducked, and another knife whizzed over her head, landing straight into some gizmo Anka had taken from a technologists corpse. It sputtered and died as the blade passed through, before falling to the floor, broken beyond repair.

“We all know you’re going to eat the less stabbed half anyway.” Anka tore at the bread, tossing half of it to Laice and sinking her teeth into the portion that remained.

Laice, nibbling on her bread, stared at the sight before her. Gythia’s most feared assassin lay before her, lazily flopped onto the couch, throwing knives at things simply to reduce the amount of moving she had to do. Anka finished devouring her bread and pointed at her goblet, and Laice sighed, grabbing it and moving over to a barrel.

“You know, I’m pretty sure nobody would expect ‘The steel phantom’ to be such a big fan of apple juice.”
A knife whizzed past her leg, and implanted itself into the stone wall. Laice ignored it and returned, putting the goblet down on a small table next to the couch.

Anka chugged the drink by the time Laice sat back down on the carpet, and looked back at her, slightly embarrassed.
“Shut up.”

“Laice.”

“What.”

“Have you ever considered that cleaning up is basically just making other things dirty?”

“You’re not getting out of dusting the bookcase.”

“Anka, we finally got a job. Wake up.”

Laice slapped Anka awake with a piece of paper which had been given to her by a military official. It wasn’t common for military personnel to call upon the best assassin within the walls of Gythia, but it happened occasionally.

“Five more minutes…”

“of slapping with a featherduster?”

Anka jolted awake, and snatched the request out of Laices hand.

It read ‘Kill yourself lol
Reward: 10 rare talent coins’

Anka stared at Laice blankly and unamused. Laice cracked up at her own joke for a moment, before passing Anka the real note.

Anka quickly led her gaze towards the small table next to the couch, and five golden coins lay there, glistening in the light from the lantern attached to the roof.

She nodded and got up for the first time in 17 hours, lazily walking towards the wardrobe to replace her purple onesie, as Laice scrambled behind her to prepare her the gear her partner would need for the long trip ahead.